Time to comply with a notice paras 4.20 to 4.23
Time to comply with a notice
4.20 The time by which any notice has to be complied with must be reasonable and realistic in all the circumstances and must take into account the practical and technical requirements of undertaking the disclosure. It will vary depending on the type and extent of the disclosure required.
4.21 Any person given a notice or to be given a notice should be afforded a reasonable period of time to seek legal or technical advice before complying with it. Equally where appropriate to do so any person who will or may be given a notice should have time to take such advice before the notice is served.
4.22 Where appropriate the time period will be related to the duration of the underlying statutory power whereby the protected information has come into the possession of the public authority or is likely to do so.
4.23 In exceptional urgent circumstances it is possible that the time by which the notice is to be complied with must be curtailed. Examples of circumstances in which immediate compliance with a notice may be appropriate are:
- an immediate threat to life such that a person's life might be endangered if the period of time for compliance were not curtailed;
- an exceptionally urgent operational requirement where, within no more than 48 hours of the notice being given compliance with that notice will directly assist the prevention or detection of the commission of a serious crime[12] and the making of arrests or the seizure of illicit material, and where that operational opportunity will be lost if the period for compliance with the notice were not curtailed, or
- [12] See Section 81(2) of the Act.
- a credible and immediate threat to national security or a time critical or unique opportunity to secure, or prevent the loss of, information of vital importance to national security where that threat might be realised, or that opportunity lost, if the period for compliance with the notice were not curtailed.